


the warden and the prisoner

by arcadianwriter (noxstories)



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF, mcyt, youtube - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Unhappy Ending, no beta it’s 2am pls i’m so tired gn, prison fic, this is not a happy fic guys!!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:07:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29097762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noxstories/pseuds/arcadianwriter
Summary: Dream is desperate to see someone again. He’ll do anything to talk to another person: even admit to his darkest secret.[Or, there’s a reason Warden Sam treats Dream so poorly.]
Comments: 53
Kudos: 345





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is nowhere near my usual writing style because it’s 👍2am👍 and i’m literally exhausted, but i wanted to get a short oneshot of dream angst out today while i’m in the mood !! so have this !! 
> 
> TRIGGERS: self destructiveness, implied self harm, mentions of suicide, mentions of emotional/mental manipulation, smp!dream being smp!dream, loneliness, touch starvation and sorta dark themes!!

“You threw your clock.”

Dream’s head snaps round. Sam is standing there behind the slabs, arms crossed, mask covering the annoyance he knows must be on his face. His eyes are as steely as ever, though. It’s impossible to contain his excitement; perking up, he stands on shaky legs, crossing to his warden and stopping at the warning sound Sam makes. Right. Of course. He’s not allowed to get too close. 

“You threw your clock,” Sam repeats, voice tired, “why?”

Dream smiles at him, like it explains anything. 

Sam frowns. “You do realise I’m gonna stop giving you a replacement soon, right?”

“I wanted to see you,” Dream says, simply, and if his throat is hoarse from screaming and crying, nobody cares enough to mention it, “I missed—”

He cuts himself off, staring emptily into the lava just past Sam’s head. Annoyed, the warden clicks his fingers, snaps Dream’s attention back to him. Dream’s eyes are hazy. 

“Well,” Dream says, “I didn’t miss  _ you. _ But I missed…. seeing people, you know?”

Sam knows. It’s been three weeks since somebody had last visited. He stares at Dream, unfathomable, cold. “I didn’t particularly want to see you,” he replies, “if you throw this clock away again, I’ll stop bringing a new one.”

Dream laughs quietly. It sounds strained. “You don’t wanna do  _ that,” _ he says lightly, “then I’ll go insane, Sam, and I won’t have any way to track how long I’ve been in here.”

He pauses. Maybe he’s already gone insane: he doesn’t think he’d know if he did. In the silence, Sam pulls out a clock: a replica of the last, though this one doesn’t have blood or burns on it. Dream takes it gratefully when Sam tosses it to him, ignores how catching it hurts his scorched, shaking hands, and stares at the time longingly. 

4:13pm. He hangs it on his wall, gives it a spin, and something in him relaxes. Everything is better again. 

“I feel like Tommy,” he blurts out, in a sudden moment of truth, and it’s worth it, just to take up a little bit more of Sam’s attention, to have just a minute more of human interaction, “when he— hah, when he was in exile.”

“You never did tell anyone what happened.” Sam’s voice hasn’t changed; something in his face has. “Tommy came back different. He hasn’t been the same since.”

“No, no, well, he wouldn’t be,” Dream agrees, sidling closer to the lava and to Sam, who stares at him very firmly until he steps back again, “I— I  _ manipulated  _ him, Sam. I told him nobody cared about him. I told him nobody wanted to visit, I pretended to send out invites to a party he hosted and comforted him when nobody showed up.”

Sam is still — too still,  _ dangerously  _ still, and Dream uses that ad his incentive to keep going.

“And I— I made sure he depended on me.” Admitting to his crimes makes him nauseous, sick to the stomach, but someone is in the room with him, he’s not alone anymore, so this is better than nothing, right? “I drove him down a dark path, Sam. He thought he had nobody but me. He thought I was his friend. And—”

He’s cut off suddenly by a hand wrapping itself round his throat, halting his air flow sharply. Sam’s eyes burn green fire and fury, and Dream distantly thinks of the lava bubbling all around them. They sting the same. 

“You’re a monster,” Sam breathes, “and if you ever go near Tommy or any of those kids again, I swear to God, I’ll kill you myself.”

Dream doesn’t respond. He’s too useful to be killed. But if he closes his eyes, he can pretend the pain in his throat is from a fake fight with George and Sapnap, or from laughing too hard at a joke with his friends, and hey: human touch is human touch. He’s not picky anymore. 

And then he’s dropped to the ground, left to sit there for a minute, dizzy and delusional. There’s a snort from somewhere above him, and Dream is only faintly aware of someone crossing his room before pausing to his left.

“I’ll hang on to this clock for the time being,” Sam says venomously, “until you learn to behave better.”

Dream begins to scramble to his feet, but his head spins, whole body aching, and by the time his vision refocuses, Sam is gone, and so is his clock. Silence wraps around his head like cold hands, and he’s alone once again. 

Back in his warden office, Sam watches Dream curl up in his cell on the cameras, before turning away. He’s shaking with fury — fury at Dream, fury at the situation, fury at the universe for letting Tommy be treated in such a way. Dream deserves so much worse than he’s getting, but this is the best he can do. Sam will make it hell on Earth for Dream: he deserves it. There’s not a single redeemable quality about him: if Sam hadn’t known it before, he’s intimately aware of it now. 

He sighs, shoulders slumping, and returns to work. It’s easy to ignore the messages that ping through on his communicator.

**[ Dream tried to swim in lava. ]**

**[ Dream tried to swim in lava. ]**

**[ Dream tried to swim in lava. ]**

**[ Dream tried to swim in lava. ]**

**[ Dream tried to swim in lava. ]**

**[ Dream tried to swim in lava. ]**


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was inspired to write another few chapters of this, so here, have chapter two at a slightly more lucid time of writing and entirely from sam's perspective!! the next one will probably be from dreams perspective - i think i'll switch back and forth between the two for a while :)
> 
> PLEASE MIND THE TRIGGER WARNINGS - isolation, self-harm/self-destructive behaviour, implied/mentioned suicide, mentions of: manipulation, isolation, torture, being touch starved, abuse. general dark themes: dream and sam are not in good mental places rn 
> 
> stay safe!! enjoy reading :]

Dream hasn’t moved from the center of the cell in two days. Sam isn’t concerned about him. He keeps an eye on the man throughout the day, checking in through the cameras every so often to ensure he’s not plotting some way to escape, and other than that, pays him no mind. But this is nothing worrying, Sam tells himself. In normal circumstances, he’d be alarmed - Dream is a child of movement, unable to sit still for longer than a second, he’s flighty and unpredictable and fidgety, so to see him so still and unresponsive is incredibly unsettling - but, he reminds himself, these aren’t normal circumstances. Dream had hurt so many people, tortured Tommy. Sam is certain he hadn’t even heard the worst of what happened to him in exile, and he already wants Dream dead.

No. He’s not concerned. Dream can rot in that prison, for all Sam’s concerned - the world has long outgrown its need for gods, and the sooner the god in question realizes this, the better. But still. It’s hard to take his eyes off the hunched figure in the cell, breathlessly waiting for a move like they’re playing a twisted game of chess. 

And then after two days, Dream stands up without any warning, and staggers too close to the lava.

Sam is on his feet and heading into the cell in an instant, sighing in irritation and donning his mask. The less of his emotions he reveals to Dream, the less the man can use against him; the safer he is.

“Dream,” he barks when he’s inside, but Dream doesn’t react in the slightest, “step away from the lava. Now. Don’t make me force you.”

Dream is unresponsive. He doesn’t give any sign that he’s heard Sam at all. Glazed eyes stare past him, deep into the lava - he doesn’t even let on the pain he must be in, fingers touching the flood of lava outside like he’s waiting for rain.

“Dream.” Sam says, not because he’s concerned, but because he knows this is an act. “Dream, don’t make me tell you again. I swear to God.”

Sure enough, he finally gets a response; Dream’s eyes flicker to him, slow, sluggish, and he stares at Sam like he doesn’t quite remember who he is. Solitary confinement is really wearing on him, Sam notes, and feels a dark bubble of satisfaction rose up inside him. Good. The bastard deserves it.

_ “Sam?” _ Dream murmurs, quietly, before his mouth splits into a smile that instantly has Sam on edge. “Mm, this is-” 

He breaks off with a soft laugh, staring back out at the lava again like he’s entranced. For a moment, Sam follows his gaze, trying to see what he’s looking at with such devotion. There's nothing but heat and fire.

“...Surprising,” Dream finishes, voice hoarse, “it’s surprising. I missed you.”

Sam lets the silence linger in answer. He hasn’t missed Dream; the man never leaves his dreams, let alone his working hours. If he never sees Dream again it’ll have been too soon. “Take your hand out of the lava,” he says like he’s talking to a particularly stupid child, “or I’ll have to punish you.”

This elicits a reaction that Sam understands - contempt curls into Dream’s hazy eyes, the ghost of a sneer traces his mouth; Dream becomes a poor caricature of his former self, jaded and angry. Not angry; he doesn’t think Dream has the lucidity to be angry anymore. 

“You’ve already taken my clock.” Dream’s gaze drifts again, away from this world, analyzing something only he can see. “I don’t really have anything else you can take to punish me.”

Sam frowns. One of the disadvantages of having a prisoner in solitary confinement is that they have absolutely nothing to lose. He can’t take away from Dream what he doesn’t have. “No,” he says simply, “you don’t. But I can speed up getting food automatically delivered to you. Stop me from visiting. Stop everyone else from visiting, too."

There are a lot of things he can do to a man who has nothing. Dream doesn’t even eat the potatoes he gives him anymore - he’d rather refill his hunger bars by dying in lava or starving to death - but Sam can take them away, too. He can limit Dream’s visitor count to zero, tell everyone he’s being kept isolated due to bad behavior and let him drown in his own thoughts. He can make Dream’s room smaller, he can get rid of his books, his clock, everything in the cell, until it’s just Dream.

_ Don’t you feel guilty for thinking this? _ A small part of him asks. For a moment, he hesitates. His thoughts are quite inhumane, even for Dream. Dream hadn’t even done anything in particular to hurt him - should he be wanting to strip even more from him?

And then he remembers the grey, grey look in Tommy’s eyes after he’d arrived back from exile, remembers the bitter tone in which he’d made Dream drop all his stuff in the hole, remembers the soft little voice Dream had spoken in when explaining Tommy’s exile to him two days ago. Sam’s heart freezes over, turns to ice.

“You don’t wanna do that,” Dream says, looking dismayed, _“You can't.”_

Sam scoffs. “May I remind you, _prisoner,”_ he replies, voice hard, “that any attempts at telling me what I want or do not want count as manipulation, and any counts of manipulation result in a direct block of visitors for five days?”

Dream flinches like he’s been hit, but there’s still a placid look on his face. He’s skin and bone, Sam realizes with something resembling alarm - Dream looks ill, cheeks hollow, eyes empty. There’s something wrong here: Dream is a far, far better actor than he’d first thought.

“Have you seen George or Sapnap?” His prisoner asks, voice soft, hesitant. He doesn’t look at him.

“Yes. I have.”

Dream swallows. “And have they- You know- Have they asked for me?”

Sam contemplates lying to Dream. Contemplates telling him that the two of them celebrated after Dream’s imprisonment, that they sought Sam out to tell him that they’d never visit Dream. Contemplates doing to Dream what Dream had done to Tommy in exile. His hands tighten around the sword.

“Sam?” Dream asks, and he sounds so different that Sam relents somewhat.

“Sapnap is spending most of his time with Karl and Quackity. As far as I know, he hasn’t once asked after you.”

This hangs in the air between them for a very, very long time. Dream’s gaze is shadowed, troubled; the lava looks more and more promising with every second that ticks by.

“George…” Sam draws his name out, watches Dream’s eyes flicker to him in brief hope, “I haven’t heard from him. Nobody’s seen George in a long, long time.”

Something hollows even further behind Dream’s face. Sam is barely used to seeing Dream without the mask - seeing the loneliness make a home for itself in the tired length of Dream’s face is somehow worse. “Oh,” he says simply, and, with a faint defeat, sits back down. “Oh. I _bored_ him.”

“What?” Sam frowns.

Dream, very characteristically, chooses not to hear and not to answer. “I’m sorry for annoying you, Sam,” he says instead, hugging his legs to his chest, “I just wanted someone to talk to.”

Sam fights down his rising worry, tries to focus on his pulsing, pulsing anger instead. “You did all this - sitting still, not eating food, burning yourself in lava - for attention?” He demands, incredulously. Dream laughs. It’s raspier than Sam ever remembers it being before.

“I remember Tommy doing something similar in exile,” he tells Sam, and Sam’s heart plummets to the ground, because he doesn't know if he can take another exile story, “I remember- hah, it was a few days before Christmas, and he wanted to go back to L’Manburg more than anything. I wouldn’t let him, but I took Ghostbur through the portal to see. You remember Ghostbur, Sam?”

Sam fights down nausea at the thought of a sixteen year old kid pleading to go home for Christmas and then his request being denied. He nods sharply - a curt incline of his head that makes Dream continue. He doesn’t understand why Dream is telling him all of this now, doesn’t understand in the slightest, but he’s going to have to be careful: he’s so close to killing Dream as it is. 

“So- So I went back through the portal to check on Tommy, because I didn’t like leaving him alone for too long, and found him standing on the edge of the nether, staring into the lava.” Dream’s smile is faint, and Sam can barely stop himself from slamming his fist into Dream’s face until any trace of the smile has been wiped clean. “And he looked like he was about to _ jump,  _ Sam. He thought I’d let him go that easily.”

“You’re crazy,” Sam hisses at him through gritted, tight teeth, “you’re a monster.”

“I didn’t want him to die, Sam, because then I’d lose my story.” Dream looks up at him, something sharp sliding through his gaze for a moment, before it fades, grows distant and unfocused. “The protagonist, you know? I’d lose- heh, I’d lose the last bit of leverage I had over everyone. Cause- Sam, what people don’t realize is that Tommy is the one everyone’s attached to. Even the people that hate him are attached to him. He affects everyone: what would the server be without him? I couldn’t let him die. He’s the key to continuing the story.”

Sam stares down at him - at Dream, this pathetic excuse for an old friend, this fallen god trying so hard to play human. And he thinks it’s a good thing that Dream is suffering so much, because if he hadn’t been, then Sam would have killed him right there and then. 

“You’re never going to get near Tommy again,” he tells Dream, sounding far more calm than he feels, “if I have my way, you’re going to rot in here, Dream. The day you go near TommyInnit is the day I drop dead on my last life. He's not a hero. He's a kid. A sixteen year old kid that you roped into your stories because you have a power complex. You're not going to go near him. Do you understand me?”

Dream doesn’t reply. He shuts his eyes, head leaning against the burning hot obsidian wall, humming a tune under his breath. All of a sudden, rage takes over Sam. What right does Dream have, to hum to himself after destroying a kid’s life, after hurting all of them? There’s silence for a long minute while Sam struggles to push down on his temper and fails.

“Can you come again soon?” Dream asks him, like he’s talking to someone who cares. “I like talking to you. You’re a lot nicer to me.”

Sam leaves without answering before he does something he regrets. He’s shaking; hands fisting at his side, lips pressed together in a firm line, and he thinks if he’s not careful, he’s going to explode. Dream, no matter what state he’s in, no matter how fragile his mental state, never fails to find a way under his skin and make a home there: Sam hates it, hates him, hates himself more than anything.

Because he remembers the look of momentary satisfaction on Dream’s face when he’d threatened him, remembered the fleeting look of relief that had crossed over his prisoner’s expression when Sam had called him a monster. He thinks back, to Dream calling him _nicer,_ and remembers that he'd never asked _compared to what?_

And Sam wonders if maybe, just maybe, his hatred is what Dream had wanted all along.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really hope you enjoyed!! i'm trying to find the fine line between showing both sam and dream in a vaguely sympathetic light, or at least an understandable light, so hopefully it worked and will be helped with dream's chapter!!
> 
> thank you so much for reading :] if you enjoyed, consider leaving kudos and/or a comment !! they always brighten my day and encourage me to write more :D
> 
> thanks again and i hope you all stay safe and well!! <3


	3. deals with the devil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I miss Sapnap,” he says absently, not looking at Sam. Sam is familiar, unpleasantly so: he doesn’t care about looking at him. He searches for the dark shape in the lava, and to his dismay, he can’t see it at all. “I’m so— cold. It’s so cold in here.”
> 
> Sam exhales roughly. “Jesus Christ.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome back!! it’s been a few days since i last posted; i’ve been snowed under with other fics and also with uni, so tysm for being so patient :D i think i’ve figured out where i want this fic to go, so i’m excited for that !! 
> 
> this is sort of a filler chapter: for now, enjoy more dream angst, and sam being both annoyed and mildly worried about how messed up dream’s psyche is. 
> 
> enjoy !! :D

Time moves differently in prison, which is to say, it doesn’t move at all. Dream counts his days by the shallow breaths he takes that scorch his lungs and counts his nights by the hours it takes to destroy a single block of his cell. 

That’s not, of course, to say he destroys blocks. He doesn’t. It’s pointless — so heavily involved as he had been with building this place, he knows it’s pointless to try and escape. Instead, he chips away at the obsidian block in the corner of his cell, and gives up after two and a half hours, just before it breaks. It’s a way to pass the time; nothing more, nothing less. And maybe it’s a cry for attention from his warden, who hasn’t appeared in five days, with food or company; it’s hope that if he sees how close he is to destroying blocks, he’ll come and visit. 

Or at least kill him. Or hurt him. Or something. He doesn’t care at this point. 

But his warden doesn’t come. Bad does, at one point. That’s nice. He seems happy to see him. Dream writes him a book to say thank you and burns it as soon as he leaves. He also seems concerned, and when he touches Dream’s shoulder gently, it’s all he can do to stop himself from breaking down right there and then. It’s so nice to have human contact, but it makes it all the harder when Bad leaves. 

He doesn’t even have his clock, either. Which sucks. He misses his clock. 

But this time, his warden comes to see him when he’s close to breaking a block. And he doesn’t seem happy at all. 

“The more you try and break it, the longer I’ll keep visitors from visiting you,” Dream is warned sharply, “the minute you break one, I’ll stop you getting visitors for a week.”

Dream abates immediately, turning to— Sam.  _ Sam,  _ Sam, not his warden, not his captor, Sam. His name escapes him sometimes, and it frightens him, because Sam is one of his oldest friends —  _ had been _ one of his oldest friends — and to find himself beginning to lose track of even the simple things is worrying. What if he forgets Sapnap? George? 

“You came,” he says, and he doesn’t know if he’s relieved or dismayed, “sorry, sorry, I was just… Hah, it was a joke.”

“A joke?” Sam repeats back, looking decidedly unamused. Dream nods his head rapidly until the movement makes him feel exhausted and dizzy; he stops instantly. 

“A joke,” he repeats, trying to push his dehydrated lips into a smile, “you like jokes, right?”

“No.”

Dream frowns. “Come on, now. Everyone loves jokes.”

Sam doesn’t reply, staring heavily at Dream like he’s debating something. Dream tries not to react, but discomfort rises from somewhere deep in his stomach. He’s never liked to be noticed like this before; he’s used to blending into the background, and especially now, when he’s barely functional with one visitor a day, never mind two. To try and distract himself, he crosses uneasily to his chest, opening it and closing it aimlessly. 

“Tommy told me what you used to do with him, to have fun,” Sam finally says, and Dream feels his heart plummet,  _ ah,  _ he thinks bleakly, _ so that’s what this is about, _ “told me you used to, ah, take his things. Burn them.”

He shakes his head, swallowing down his own reluctance. “No, no, I didn’t burn them,” he says, chuckling —  _ come on,  _ he tells himself, _ the villain charade isn’t so hard, you just need to focus, you just need to try _ — “I made him explode them, Sam. With TNT.”

“You made him…”

Dream interrupts before Sam can finish, turning to face him. “Will you sit with me if I tell you more?” He asks, something catching in his voice. Sam’s eyes narrow behind his mask. 

“Five minutes.”

Five minutes. Dream doesn’t know whether to scream at the shortness of it, and rejoice that at least he has that time. He chooses to speak instead, scrambling over his words, unable to get them out fast enough. It feels like confession. 

“Sometimes I would do it. Explode things, I mean. Closer to the end, though, I made him do it. I’d show up, he’d drop his things in a hole, and he’d— he’d explode them in front of me. So he had to restart with nothing.”

Sam lets out a horrified little noise; ripped from him involuntarily. “Why?” He demands, like it’s not obvious. 

Dream tilts his head, puzzled. “Because I wanted him dependent on me,” he says, “because otherwise he’d begin to build a proper life for himself, and I couldn’t have  _ that.  _ I didn’t want him starting over in exile. I wanted him always at the starting line.” 

Something catches his attention in the lava; abandoning his chest, Dream wanders over, peering inside curiously. A dark shape in the distance. Too blurry for him to make out. It reminds him of Sapnap, his best friend, born in lava, most alive in flame. God, he wishes Sapnap had been here. He misses him. He misses—

“Dream!” Sam’s voice, snappish, cold, and Dream staggers backwards, yanked by his collar. To his surprise, he’s taken six hearts of damage: a few minutes longer, he knows, and he’d be dead again. And again. And again. And— “Dream, what the hell are you playing at?”

“I miss Sapnap,” he says absently, not looking at Sam. Sam is familiar, unpleasantly so: he doesn’t care about looking at him. He searches for the dark shape in the lava, and to his dismay, he can’t see it at all. “I’m so— cold. It’s so cold in here.”

“Jesus Christ.” Sam exhales roughly, one hand still tightly wrapped around his wrist: it’s probably going to bruise. The touch is unwelcome, welcome. Dream is too far gone to know. Instead, he sways, and pulls his gaze from the lava to the wall his clock should be on. 

Sam. His face lights up, and he finally turns to face his warden, who looks disturbed, staring at Dream like he’s staring at a creature he doesn’t quite recognise. “Do you have my replacement clock?” Dream asks, eagerly, and Sam pauses, before shaking his head. 

“I’m not giving you one. All you do is throw it in lava, constantly. Why would I give you something you clearly don’t give a damn about?”

“ _ No— _ No, no, no, Sam.” Dream’s attention snaps back to the present, Sapnap dismissed from his mind. “I need the clock. I just— I just wanted to talk to you, that’s all. And I know you come here when I throw away my clock, so—”

“So you thought you’d get attention through annoying me,” Sam finishes for him, “well, now that I know, that’s never going to work again. Nice try, Dream. Look, you’re in here to be punished, not as a vacation. You don’t  _ get _ to talk to me whenever you want. I’m not your friend in here, Dream. I’m your warden.”

His  _ clock.  _ Dream tunes Sam out, staring at his old friend in panic. How is he supposed to keep track of things without his clock? The one object that let him keep some semblance of control — at least with his clock, he’d known what time it had been outside. Now? He’s blind. And it’s painfully hard to play any sort of role let alone the villain while he’s so unsettled and off balance. 

“What if I give you something you want?” Dream whispers. “What if— I offer you something for my clock and your company?”

Sam stops mid-speech, scoffs. His tone is final. “Goodbye, Dream. I’ll see you in a couple of days.”

“Wait, no, Sam, don’t go, wait,” Dream scrambles, grabbing hold of Sam’s sleeve and not even caring when he instantly gets a sword thrust under his chin, hard enough to draw a thin line of blood, “I can tell you about Tommy. I can tell you everything I did to Tommy, everything that happened in exile, everything I did to him. And— And it’ll help him. If you talk to me sometimes, and if you let me have my clock.”

Sam wrenches his hand off his sleeve, and Dream ignores the pain that shoots through his wrist. “Are you trying to bribe me?” He demands viciously. “Don’t make me punish you for this.”

Dream moves back instantly, swallowing thickly. Eyeing Sam like a cornered animal, he tries again, tries to cover his own clumsy mistakes. It’s so hard to know the right move here: villainy and manipulation had come so easily before. But in this cell, where the mining fatigue makes him slow and makes his head spin? Where it’s hard to formulate sentences, never mind manipulation? He feels lost, unmoored in his own words. 

“I just want my clock,” he says quietly, uncertain, “please.”

Sam is silent, for a long, long minute. And then he reaches into his bag, pulls out a clock, puts it on the wall where it belongs, and Dream’s world is restored. 

“You tell me everything you did to Tommy for five minutes every two days,” he says briskly, like he’s not made Dream’s entire week light up, “that’s all you get. And your clock.”

Dream pulls the clock from the wall, cradles it like it’s the world. “And my clock.”

“We’ll start tomorrow.” Sam shoots him a long look — serious, terse. “Any sign of you trying to manipulate me or sympathise with you and this is called off. Do you understand me?”

His smile feels more real. “I’ll see you soon?”

Sam doesn’t reply, stepping into the water respawn pit and disappearing. Dream sits cross-legged on the burning floor, humming under his breath. His gaze doesn’t waver from his clock. He should name it, he thinks, only half joking: it would at least be someone to talk to. 

“Now I have a visitor every two days for certain,” he tells it, ignoring the way his voice wobbles, “I’m lucky, Sapnap. Really. Things could be worse.”

The clock stares back at him, doubtful. 

The lava to his right bubbles. 

Dream buries his head in his hands, pressing the cool glass of the clock against his face. 

Things could be worse. Things could always be worse. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you enjoyed !! perhaps not my strongest chapter but hey, it’s midnight and i’m so tired :’) for more dream angst, please check out my tumblr (@dreamsclock) where i am the self proclaimed ceo of dsmp!dream angst — feel free to follow me there!!
> 
> if you enjoyed, feel free to also leave a kudos and/or comment, because they really put a smile on my face every morning!!
> 
> ily all, have a good night :]

**Author's Note:**

> tysm for reading <3 i’ll probably write something along this vein in the future a) better and b) at an earlier time for me dnskbxnd ,, i’m thinking of bad’s visit to dream, or a george/sapnap visit !! who knows.....
> 
> ily all :] stay safe and remember you’re real and it’s all just roleplay!! :d


End file.
